House Members Give Their Families Millions in Campaign Cash
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Tim Hawley/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) — In the past two election cycles, Americans donated close to $2 billion to candidates running for the U.S. House. Their contributions not only went to fund core campaign costs, but also to candidates’ babysitters, five-star hotels in Athens, six-figure salaries for candidates’ family members and thousands of dollars in interest payments to the candidates themselves.
A 347-page report on House campaign contributions released Thursday by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington suggests that it pays to be related to a member of Congress. Throughout the 2008 and 2010 election cycles, more than half of the current members of the House – 248 to be exact – each spent more than $10,000 in campaign cash to pay themselves and their family a combined total of $5.6 million, according to the non-profit ethics watchdog group.
“Millions of dollars… flow through campaign accounts with little oversight and sporadic scrutiny from the toothless FEC [Federal Elections Commission],” the CREW report states.
The report notes that while many of these expenditures toe the line of legality, all are within the law.
It’s not just family members getting big checks when their spouses, parents, uncles and aunts run for Congress, 14 members themselves have made sizable profits from loaning parts of their personal fortunes to their election campaigns, according to CREW.
The CREW report found that 44 representatives had at least one family member who has been a registered lobbyist.
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